Ghosts of our shared past

Returning with PTSD from life on a reservation shed light on a troubling side of Canada’s history, writes ALEXANDRA SHIMO

PHOTOGRAPHY BY MICHAEL BANASIAK

PERSONAL ESSAY

My first experience of the semantic headaches self-deception creates when working in a literary genre (creative non-fiction) that aims to capture the nuance and subtlety of life – the real “truth,” as it were – happened in 2005. It was Toronto’s “summer of the gun,” and my assignment was to interview victims of gun violence and write about what it’s like to be shot.

About Quill & Quire

FALL PREVIEW
More than 145 new titles to make the season a colourful one. Raizel Robin, Brian Francis, Angie Abdou, Melanie Fishbone and more contribute.
ZOE WHITTAL
defies categorization with her timely new novel.
BORDER CROSSINGS
In telling the fraught tale of a desperate foreigner in the U.S., David Bergen has written arguably his best novel. Stranger.